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44 Comments
- koregaonpark, on 10/12/2007, -5/+29Oh my, a lot of what this guy is saying is true. Especially the part about diggers commenting on digg and not on the dugg site.
Okay, digg my comment down now ;-) - misterpony, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16There is a lot of truth to this article. The types of stories and the comments certainly reflect the types of users that have jumped on board digg. The tone has changed since I first started coming to digg to a point that it almost doesn't seem like the same site. On one hand, I like the larger number of stories on digg now, but more importantly, the overall tone and quality was certainly better before V3 launched. Customizing the topics obviously keeps the stories I want to see, but it doesn't do anything to hide the ignorant and boorish comments on those stories.
- ImpactedColon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14This perfectly encapsulates everything I have felt about Digg for some time. I am a Kevin Rose apologist and think he's done and is capable of great things, and I love his weekly podcast. However, each week the online behavior is more and more riotous. Threads are hijacked in no time at all, and all-out flame wars ensue about topics completely unrelated to the stories.
For instance, in this story (which hasn't yet hit the front page as of this moment and may never, if you believe some of the points raised in the article), you've already got a few utterly worthless comments (see Jammerdelray and edmondodantes). Kevin's constant mantra that "the community polices itself" is no longer a benefit to me.
Essentially, Rose claims that the site *is* moderated, but it's okay because the users themselves do it. I don't understand why it's anathema to him to have actual moderators. He's claimed (as recently as on netatnite with AmberMac) that there are too many stories to police effectively, and trusts his users and burial algorithms to do the trick. This is not a solution--it is a restatement of the problem: there are too many stories, most of which are junk, and the junk makes it prohibitively difficult to upkeep the site.
What he hasn't yet come to terms with is that a *social* website comprosed of living, breathing people cannot be governed by a mechanical algorithm that moderates the content. If his vision is to bring people together, people need to oversee it. Digg (before v2) used to be the first site I visited every day, but I only visit if I have time once I have read through moderated blogs. Honestly, the quality of writing is vastly better, and I have a chance to learn something. Digg = aggravation.
The final straw for me was the numerous James Kim stories that surfaced on Digg when the man passed. Seeing a story about Kim on a site designed by Rose, colleagues and friends for some time, with comments that said things like "James deserved to die" and "Who cares if this guy's dead? He's not important" made be angry. The legacy of Digg is that it allows one set of users to police another set of users, neither of which is every going to change, and instead of being enriched by the content, Diggers have to wade through the mess. - koregaonpark, on 10/12/2007, -4/+18I agree with him about the negativity. All the insults are starting to get me down.
- DigiDave, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13I agree to some extent. I think what he noticed about Digg's culture is spot on. As misterpony said (above) -- the community has changed.
But I don't think his assumptions about the wisdom of the crowd is accurate: The wisdom of the crowd can be used to do great things -- but they need to be directed. That's why different social news sites are getting different types of communities and different results. In Digg they are left open -- so you get a lot of entertainment news and some crap here and there. Newsvine has a different community ethos, and a different result of top stories -- It's not that one community is any wiser than the other -- it's that the site themselves are giving different directions in where to take the collective wisdom.
You reap what you sow. - Varrus, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15Looks like this submission was smacked down by the digg gods. Isn't it great when the hidden moderators kill a perfectly legitimate story for reasons unknown?
- frant1c, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10"But when the crowd involved reaches a certain threshold size, the value that is added by extra voices is more than negated by the "groupthink" that occurs as people begin shutting off their brains."
"Although digg claims to be a news aggregation service, in the scheme of things digg articles skew much further towards the Entertainment side of the online content spectrum than they do to the News side."
This two quotes quite well point to the essence of Digg's problems. - tomboy501, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Regarding the negative commentators on the James Kim stories: I think the user-moderation system worked fine in those instances. Not only were those users buried to all new lows, I am sure that most may have also been permanently banned due to numerous emails to abuse@digg - especially the ones that made racist comments. That was a passionate subject and the community is not going to stand for that kind of behavior. I'm hoping those users were weeded out completely. They were pretty few and far between, too. For the most part, James Kim's stories brought out an amazing and overwhelmingly positive level of support from the digg users.
It's not like reading those few negative comments hurt my eyes to see...just made me realize that there are ***** in this world everywhere. Any community usually takes care of their own. - Varrus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9dandiemer, when digg buries a submission, it typically doesn't completely disappear. It simply isn't considered as a candidate for promotion to the main page, and doesn't show up on the Upcoming pages. It just sits there in the background.
- bliz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I have to agree with you. Initially digg.com was pretty much used by geeks who probably used slashdot, and to a certain extent del.icio.us (oh...the heady of web2.0/ajax being touted as the killer app.). The ability to digg a story as opposed to having a story selected by a moderator (as in slashdot) was a godsend. I could remember the aggregate sites that compared the stories posted in digg and slashdot...and the rivalry..."this was dugg before it was slashdotted (and vice versa)".
- flashboy131, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8I think he makes some valid points. The negativeity is evident in all of the James Kim threads from last week. But anytime a community website gets big you will get an increase of noise. After awhile that noise gets to the point where people will leave.
Hopefully Digg can survive. - OneAndOnlySnob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7He forgot explain how and why the quality of stories has dropped phenomenally in the past year, from being superior to Slashdot on average to being a sensationalist tabloid.
- djasmith, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Interesting article.
I've been a member of Digg for some time now but have never commented on any articles.
I have always considered Digg a worthy resource for aggregated news.
But it somewhat annoys me how user comments appear to have moved away from discussion relating to the dugg site and to more of a soapbox stance my Dads better than your Dad scene.
I maybe a bit of an oddity here but as a result I rarely trawl through the comments nowadays.
If the article headline and brief synopsis interest me I will view the article; and I may read the first comment to get a feel from the first posters point of view . . .
I hope Digg and the team manage to overcome some of the more egotistical members of Digg and grow to greater better things.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment here :) - apotropaic, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6set default comment threshold to +10... it makes a HUGE difference
- emer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Definitely has a point on the anti-Microsoft sentiment. It seems encouraged as there is a lot of Microsoft content on digg however there is no Microsoft category. And ofcourse there is an Apple category.
Doesn't sound very democratic in this light.... - caworden, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8I agree Varrus...
If it isn't what they want shown, it will get buried.
Oh well, such is life... - bohemicus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I am a little surprised by the comments on this post. They certainly don't live up to the supposed anger of Digg users. Frankly, I'm a bit of a leech on Digg - I use it as a source of news - almost never comment and rarely remember to go back to digg a story I like. As a result I don't tend to read comments on Digg, mostly because I prefer the expertise of the users of the site I'm on.
But when I do go to read comments on Digg - mostly with posts about social websites on which Digg users are expert - I usually find a reasonable balance of thoughtful commentary and venting. I do get the feeling that Digg presents fewer important stories (I only get the tech feed) than it used to but it could also be that I have become a bit more sophisticated about tech news in the last year and a half since I started using Digg. So overall I wish Digg good luck and want to thank the community that puts in all the hard time for my benefit. - zman8479, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Plenty of Google content as well, but no Google section. Is there criteria for starting a new section?
- duckyinc, on 11/25/2007, -1/+4And the fact that all comments have being removed proved that digg has no place for free speech.
- BigKitty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2A lot of times, the dugg site doesn't allow comments from the public at all, or doesn't allow them unless you register and/or subscribe to something.
- MrViklund, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@ MaddDog
Well, I don't think the karma system would work. It can be misused too. I think a system like that could be used against users by other users. But it's worth discussing. - supaflystud, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Whether Digg turns into a pile of crap 5 years down the road or not, I'm still going to enjoy it in the present.
- MaddDog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2There should be karma on users, so that these trolls don't start out at +1 digg every time they post. If you get -100 diggs enough times, you should be starting at -4 diggs, and have to earn your way back.
- HMTKSteve, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3The problem with the James Kim articles is that there was a ton of SPAM posted with his name in the title.
There were spam posts about GPS systems with titles along the lines of "If James Kim had this he would not have gotten lost!" - koregaonpark, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Just look at digg.com/upcoming.
Most stories that question the motives of the "digg overlords" are buried. It happened during the algorithm change and when some topusers were banned as well. - rheaume, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5100% agree
- CheffPJ, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Ironically enough, this article has attracted a ton of intelligent discussion (more than you usually see). How can digg foster this type of valuable discussion on a regular basis?
- Varrus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Hi Doozee - This submission has over 240 diggs, and yet if you choose to look at upcoming submissions by greatest number of diggs, the highest you'll see there at any given time is between 40 - 60; that's because at that point the post gets promoted to the main page, and isn't part of the upcoming submissions. This one never got promoted, and doesn't show up in the list. It got buried.
- BigKitty, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I hope all of the Digg-naysayers are mistaken, but I think there is indeed a major problem having to do with how easy it is to bury stories anonymously.
Just for laughs, look at the comment stream on this post to see how I attempted to deal with a person who called me "stupid":
http://digg.com/politics/Barack_Dumbo_Obama_Can_t_Handle_Being_Teased_About_His_Big_Ears
But as soon as I posted this, somebody Buried the entire story down to oblivion, and now nobody is seeing my reply at all!
By the way (chuckle, shameless self-promotion) - anybody who's curious about my true
identity can look at these:
http://redwing.hutman.net/%7Emreed/warriorshtm/bigcat.htm
http://www.tvweber.com - SuperDelen, on 11/29/2007, -0/+1Of course it isn't, but if you want news you don't care about or heard about already; Digg is the place for you.
- MistressRoninS, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@ImpactedColon
Thank you for posting your comment because it was profound and very refreshing.
This is the kind of commenting I look forward to on Digg, the kind that keeps me coming back in spite of the recent discouragement that I have had with the ill sentiment of many people's comments on various articles.
What you said about your experience with the James Kim articles is similar to what I felt at the time and it was my first real negative experience with the moderation and policing policies on Digg.com.
I had a deeply emotional connection to the evolving story and to see the futility of comments like that , understanding that I could only digg down or block what was disturbing while others continued to offer positive votes for those same useless comments, it really effected my opinion of digg as a whole community.
-That being said, it was also my first real experience with the incredible amount of thoughtful, mature and caring digg users who commented- resulting in what seemed to me, the extreme of both good and bad sides of this site.
I think that the majority of users here reflect that positive aspect and I still think there is a chance to reclaim what the site was intended for, I have chosen to stick around and see what happens.
MRS - MrViklund, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1If we all did that we wouldn't see any comments at all...
- MrViklund, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Well said.
- MistressRoninS, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@koregaopark
I agree too, I dugg your comment so stay put. Of the collections of digg articles on this subject, this one is by far the most in depth and diplomatic that I have seen. It covers many aspects and is very complete in my opinion. I do not know about the "hidden moderators" either but it certainly should be disclosed if there are any.
MRS - Doozee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1To Varrus (sorry, but the reply link on your post is gone), forgive me if I ask a stupid question, I'm new here, but ... how do you know that this story is not on the Upcoming Stories? There are currently over 4000 posts on the upcoming stories, and there is no search, so how are you able to make this particular determination? And how can it be determined in general that a story has been buried by the administrators? I would appreciate anyone's response.
- marphtwo, on 07/23/2008, -0/+0I totally agree with this! Ive seen so many good new topics and comments buried because it didnt agree with the mainstream (myself included)
I didnt think people at Digg would agree with this! - Trentw, on 12/02/2007, -1/+0Microsoft sux!
- flashboy131, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4this thread has been buried?
- Roger, on 10/12/2007, -9/+7He does make some valid points, but if he really wants to point out failure, he should start with the new netscape.com
- dandiemer, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2i see it still.
- ICSU, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1"Digg is a user driven social content website."
Where does ti claim to be "a news aggregation service"? Nowhere indeed. - Jammerdelray, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1Digg Forever
- edmondodantes, on 10/12/2007, -8/+0downloadsquad=AOL=Netscape.ohh yes...Digg is destined for failure..yes..yes..
- ronin691, on 10/12/2007, -14/+1Second only to iPhone are blog posts about how Digg will fail.
What makes the iPhone and [ false ] prophecies about Digg's demise such popular subjects for peoples diarrhea-of-the-mouth?
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